


Tarantism

by Alice_Majella



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:31:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_Majella/pseuds/Alice_Majella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the noble and most ancient house was going to end here, if the last of the Black family was going to go, he was going to go out dancing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tarantism

Regulus Black hadn’t been in a dance studio for years. Back, before the war, before the Dark Mark, seared into his arm, before Sirius left home - long before Regulus even started at Hogwarts, he had dreamed of being a dancer. His mother had found him a teacher – an old, retired ballet dancer, a witch – as a tiny child ‘to improve your posture’, and the young boy had taken to the art like a duck to water. The lessons had stopped when he turned eleven, but that had never stopped Regulus, standing in the spacious bathroom of his Slytherin dormitory, one hand on the towel rail, feet carefully pointed, eyes on the line of his arm in the mirror. Sirius had always been the talented brother, the handsome brother, the brother who left his family behind and made is look easy, but if Regulus had nothing else, he had this. He could put everything behind him – the pressure from his family, Sirius’ betrayal, the growing, gnawing doubt in his mind, and he could dance, and for a while, he would be free.

It had always been nothing more than an illusion, an escape. A denial. And so now here he stood, in an abandoned studio, with the stolen locket hounding his thoughts, and a contingent of Death Eaters not far behind, and he knew that even dancing couldn’t save him, not even is his head. He was going to die today. There was no question to that, and no pirouette, no battement, no matter how perfectly executed, could push that from his mind.

He put a hand on the delapidated barre, and stretched a leg, carefully, slowly. He pulled away from the barre, and he turned. He stopped, unsteady, one leg bent, the other extended. He wobbled. He steady himself, just for a moment, against the barre, and then he let music play in his head, and Regulus Black danced. He danced, until the weight of the locket didn’t pull him down. It grounded him. It let him fly. He danced until it didn’t matter that his life was ruled by his mother, by his cousins, by the Dark Lord. He danced because they were watching him, he danced as the door of the studio opened, and he didn’t stop to see who it was who drew their wand. He danced because they were watching him, because they would see that Regulus Black would not go quietly. He would not die a coward’s death, too soft to live up to the mark on his arm, too spineless to renounce it.

If the noble and most ancient house was going to end here, if the last of the Black family was going to go, he was going to go out dancing.


End file.
